Theory and practice in professional education : A systematic review

1. Identification of primary studies Database search Obtainabledocuments Dataextraction Data extraction and coding of 99 primary studies 307documentsobtained One documentwas not available 4657referencesidentified Removal of duplicates Fulltext screening Screening based on the fulltext of eachdocument Research mapping Characteristic features of the includedprimary studies 222 studies excluded 85 studies included 442duplicatesidentified 4215 unique references Abstractscreening Screening based on abstract Narrative synthesis Based on the includedprimary studies 3907 references excluded 14 studies identified and included Phase 1 Includeddocuments Phase 2 Includeddocuments 308 documentsincluded Theory and practice in professional education: A systematicreview Trine Kløveager Nielsen, Department of Education, Aarhus Universitye-mail: tkn@dpu.dk Aimsof the study According to Carr (1986), there is no gap between theory and practice, but rather a gap between rivaling theories about how practice is to be understood. Rival views of educational theory also incorporate rival views of how theory relates to practice. Carr argues that when the theorist’s interpretation of practice is similar to that of the practitioner, theory and practice relate to each other in a relevant way. However, when the theorist and the practitioner construe professional practice in different ways, theory is perceived by the practitioner as unrelated to practice. Carr identifies five approaches, each implying a particular view on theory, practice and the relationship between the two. In Carr (1986) four approaches are described; the common sense approach, the applied science approach, the practical approach, and the critical approach. Later, Carr also introduces a fifth approach, the philosophical approach (Carr, 1990). The first part of the screening was based on abstracts, and the studies included in this part were then full-text screened on basis of the whole document. Reliability of the screening was addressed through a test of inter-rater reliability employing Cohen’s Kappa. Agreements of ratings was 96.67% with a Kappa-value of .839. The strength of agreement between raters could thus be considered as “very good” (Altman, 1992) or “almost perfect” (Landis & Koch, 1977). A fundamental component in professional education is the interaction between theory and practice. However, many students in professional education programs experience a lack of coherence between theory and practice, which is sometimes described as the theory-practice gap (Leinhardt et al., 1995; Landers, 2000; Spouse, 2001). In recent years, there has been a drop in the number of applicants for the educational programs in Denmark and at the same time an increase in the drop-out rate. There can be many reasons for this, but one contributing factor appears to a lack of coherence between theory and practice as experienced by the students. A study by Jensen et al. (2008) showed that 35% of students, who considered to drop out of their professional bachelor education programs experienced an inadequate relation between theory and practice in the education. This study is part of ”Bridging the Gap”, a Danish research project conducted in collaboration between the Institute of Education, University of Aarhus (DPU), Danish Institute of Governmental Research (AKF), University College Capital (UCC) and the Engineering College of Aarhus. The aim of Bridging the Gap is to explore the relationship between theory and practice in teacher, nurse, social work and engineering education. The aim of the present study, which is still ongoing, is to identify the most promising strategies for improving the relationship between theory and practice through the conduction of a systematic review of the international empirical research of relevance to the review question based on both qualitative and quantitative methods. The systematic review consists of a research mapping, which identifies and characterizes the empirical research concerning the review question, and a synthesis based on the empirical studies found in the research mapping. The review question guiding the research was: Which strategies in education affect the theory-practice relationship in professional education programs in teaching, nursing, engineering and social work and in other professional bachelor education programs regarding health, teaching and technology, and how? In this project, the aim is to maintain an open approach to various understandings and conceptualizations of the theory-practice relationship in order to include different kinds of research approaching the theory-practice relationship from different angles, within different research paradigms and with different kinds of research methodologies. There are a number of different approaches to the question of theory and practice as well as different views on how to create better coherence between theory and practice in professional education (see for example Carlson, 1999; Korthagen & Kessels, 1999; Kroll, 2004; Leinhardt et al., 1995; Westbury, 2005). Since the primary studies presumably are based on different and perhaps contradicting perceptions of the theory-practice relationship, it is deemed necessary to analyze and clarify which understanding each primary study is based upon in order to determine whether different understandings also lead to different results in the primary studies. As a framework for analysis, Wilfred Carr’s typology of different understandings of the theory-practice relationship will be employed (Carr, 1986). This typology has proved adequate to characterize the understandings of the theory-practice relationship in professional education (Fealy, 1997; 1999; Wong, 2011). Included studies were coded and analyzed in the EPPI-Reviewer. Primary studies were coded in categories according to the five understandings of the theory-practice relationship as described by Carr (1986; 1990) and the strategies and professional educational context in focus of the study. Furthermore, studies were coded in the EPPI-Reviewer for a number of topics such as study type and information about study aims, sample, data collection, data analysis, results, and conclusions. A narrative synthesis approach as described by Popay et al. (2006) was taken to the synthesis. The narrative synthesis approach is suitable for systematic reviews focusing on questions not only relating to the effectiveness of a particular intervention. The main elements of the synthesis consist of (a) developing a theoretical model of how the interventions work, why and for whom, (b) developing a primary synthesis, (c) exploring relationships in the data, and (d) assessing the robustness of the synthesis product. The included studies deal with a number of different strategies including various types of technology supported tools for reflection and social networking (34 studies); portfolio or journal writing (24); organization of field experiences and learning in practice settings (17); supervision and mentoring (20); case based learning (11); collaborative learning, e.g. study group or seminars (30); action research where students make inquiries or research in a practice setting, e.g. in connection with their field placement or thesis (7); narratives such as life stories, patient stories or letter writing (7); skill labs or demonstration labs (3); and partnerships between university and practice setting (17). Several studies deal with more than one strategy or a combination of strategies, e.g. a study dealing with online peer journaling has been coded for “technology” as well as for “journal” and “collaborative learning”. Most of the studies take the practical approach to the theory practice relationship. They emphasize reflection and reflective practices and view students´ abilities to make justified and defensible decisions as the primary goal for learning. Studies with a practical approach to the theory practice relationship seem to be mainly dealing with teacher education. Among the studies dealing with nurse and engineer education are also a number of studies with an applied science approach to theory and practice although the practical approach can also be found in nurse education studies. Only a few studies take a common sense or a critical approach, and no studies have a philosophical approach. The next steps will be the conduction of a research mapping of the primary studies included followed by an in-depth analysis and synthesis. In the synthesis, focus is on the strategies investigated in the primary studies and on the studies´ understanding of the theory-practice relationship and how these underlying assumptions influence the focus and results of the studies. A hypothesis is that because different understandings of theory and practice implicate different understandings of the “good” relationship between theory and practice, then different educational strategies will be relevant depending on the particular assumptions and goals for the relationship between theory and practice thatare implied in the primary studies. The systematic review is expected to be finished by January 2013. Summary of the review process 91 uniqueprimary studies remain Hand-search Search for references in corejournals For the analysis of primary studies, a model based on Carr’s fiveapproaches to the theory-practice relationship is used. The model is a matrix in three dimensions of which one consists of the approach to the theory-practice relationship, while the others consist of the educational context and the strategy which is investigated in the study. This also makes it possible to conduct many small syntheses where e.g. studies with the same theory-practice approach, educational context or strategy are synthesized. Results and conclusion 99 studies included Theoretical frame Preliminary results The literature search generated 4657 hits. The references were uploaded and imported in the EPPI Reviewer, and duplicates were removed which left a number of 4215 references. After abstract screening, 308 studies were included based on the inclusion criteria. Of these, 85 were included after screening based on full text. A further 14 were included based on a hand-search in the core journals of the field, making the number of primary studies included in the review 99. The studies were coded in the EPPI-Reviewer Data Extraction and Coding Tool for Education Studies V2.0 which was adjusted to this specific systematic review. During the coding, the number of references was reduced to 91 because some of the studies turned out to be articles published in different journals about the same study. The coding of the primary studies shows that most of the studies deal with teacher education while only three of 91 studies deal with engineering education and 14 with nurse education. It is not possible to determine the reason for this based on the data, but it shows that there is much attention towards the theory practice relationship in educational research about teacher education compared to research about nurse and engineer education. As illustrated in Table 1, the number of codes for educational context exceeds the number of studies included because some studies are coded for more than one educational context, e.g. both preschool teacher education and teacher education. Method A literature search was conducted in various databases within educational research, but since professional education research is often cross disciplinary it was chosen to also search within sociological and psychological databases in order to reflect the width of the research. The search was conducted in 13 databases, representing both Scandinavian and international research. Furthermore, a hand search was conducted in journals thatwere regarded as core journals within the field. A list of inclusion and exclusion criteria was developed in order to select only the primary studies focusing on the review question. The most significant screening criteria dealt with the topic and focus of the study while other criteria regarded methodology, educational context, geography and time of publication. Next step in the review process was the screening of the identified studies according to the defined criteria. The screening took place in the EPPI-Reviewer, a web-based software for conducting systematic reviews. ReferencesCarr, W. (1986). Theories of Theory and Practice. Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1986 (177-186). Carr, W. (1987). What is an Educational Practice? Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1987 (163-175). Carr, W. (1990). Educational Theory and its Relation to Educational Practice. I: Entwistle, N. (Ed.): Handbook of Educational Ideas and Practices. London: Routledge. Carr, W. (1998).For Education: Towards Critical Educational Inquiry. Buckingham: Open University Press. Carr, W. (2006). Education without Theory. British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 54, No. 2, June 2006 (136-159). Carr, W. & Kemmis, S. (1986).Becoming critical: Education, knowledge and action research. East Sussex: The Falmer Press. Fealy, G.M. (1997). The theory-practice relationship in nursing: an exploration of contemporary discourse. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1997, 25 (1061-1069). Fealy, G.M. (1999). The theory-practice relationship in nursing: the practitioners´ perspective. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1999, 30(1) (74-82). Landers, M. (2000). The theory-practice gap in nursing: The role of the nurse teacher. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 33, 4 (530-540). Leinhardt, G., Young, K.M. & Merriman, J. (1995). Integrating professional knowledge: The theory of practice and the practice of theory. Learning and Instruction, Vol. 5 (401-408). Popay, J., Roberts, H., Sowden, A., Petticrew, M., Arai, L., Rodgers, M., & Britten, N. (2006).Guidance on the Conduct of Narrative Synthesis in Systematic Reviews. ESRC Methods Programme. Spouse, J. (2001). Bridging the theory and practice in the supervisory relationship: A sociocultural perspective. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 33(4) (512-522). Wong, A.C.K. (2011). Clues of How Pastoral Leaders Learn in Context: Implications for Theological Education. Religious Education, Vol. 106, No. 2 (215-231).